4 ms·

Well, let's for arguments sake consider the most important demographic in my mind: me :-). (That's what most people do anyway). Joking aside. I'd love to make

by bborud 5y ago

Well, let's for arguments sake consider the most important demographic in my mind: me :-). (That's what most people do anyway). Joking aside. I'd love to make Mathematica part of my toolbox, but the steep pricing makes me think about all the other software I pay license fees on that I depend on, and I need another software expense like I need a third buttock. If it wasn't a recurring license, or a recurring license at a significantly lowered price, that would make it different.

analog31 5y ago
Indeed, in my case, I've got my basic toolchain installed on more than a half dozen computers. At work, I do hardware related R&D, so I need my tools at multiple workstations in the lab. At home, a work-at-home computer and a personal computer. If I share something, my victims need to install their own copy of the tools. Then there's the whole world of code running on microcontrollers, which is how I prototype hardware gadgets, also in multiple locations. There is one piece of domain specific software that I use, and that is tied to a single computer, but I only use it sporadically when I need to do that particular kind of design work. I appreciate Wolfram's vision for a universal computing platform, but aside from the problem of getting everybody to agree on what that should look like, it's not a realistic dream unless it addresses things like economics and logistics.
- bborud 5y ago
  You point out something extremely important here: the ability to share work with other people. Tool-use tends to promote or limit networked effects. If I'm the only one who can afford Mathematica in a given context where I collaborate with other people, then we won't be using Mathematica. Simple as that. On the flip side: If I introduce a tool in a networked context, my enthusiasm may well end up converting dozens of other people. I think Wolfram could have built a much broader and more stable revenue base if they'd dropped the professional licenses by roughly 1/10 and gotten a bigger user base.
carry_bit 5y ago
Mathematica is available as a non-recurring license, though you'll have to pay for upgrades if you want to upgrade in that case.
ryanobjc 5y ago
I tried to do this for a few years. I really tried, I renewed, I did various analysis in it... But it's really hard to make it performant on data processing tasks, learning how to do things efficiently in the language. The curated data is... honestly a little basic and overrated imo. If you are doing general work, maybe their population info is ok, but you don't really know the source of the data entirely, when it was acquired, etc. If you are doing real research, it's not gonna cut it. I wanted to do analysis of ethereum, but their blockchain library was incredibly weak. It did not support reading data at given block ids (ie: historical analysis), and when I requested the feature the answer was basically "maybe in the next major revision." I'm not a fan of python, but I went there. I used typed python, which ultimately I think the best solution moving forward is probably typescript, since typed python has a lot of type holes in it :-/

by bborud 5y ago

analog31 5y ago

Indeed, in my case, I've got my basic toolchain installed on more than a half dozen computers. At work, I do hardware related R&D, so I need my tools at multiple workstations in the lab. At home, a work-at-home computer and a personal computer. If I share something, my victims need to install their own copy of the tools. Then there's the whole world of code running on microcontrollers, which is how I prototype hardware gadgets, also in multiple locations. There is one piece of domain specific software that I use, and that is tied to a single computer, but I only use it sporadically when I need to do that particular kind of design work. I appreciate Wolfram's vision for a universal computing platform, but aside from the problem of getting everybody to agree on what that should look like, it's not a realistic dream unless it addresses things like economics and logistics.

bborud 5y ago
You point out something extremely important here: the ability to share work with other people. Tool-use tends to promote or limit networked effects. If I'm the only one who can afford Mathematica in a given context where I collaborate with other people, then we won't be using Mathematica. Simple as that. On the flip side: If I introduce a tool in a networked context, my enthusiasm may well end up converting dozens of other people. I think Wolfram could have built a much broader and more stable revenue base if they'd dropped the professional licenses by roughly 1/10 and gotten a bigger user base.

carry_bit 5y ago

Mathematica is available as a non-recurring license, though you'll have to pay for upgrades if you want to upgrade in that case.

ryanobjc 5y ago

I tried to do this for a few years. I really tried, I renewed, I did various analysis in it... But it's really hard to make it performant on data processing tasks, learning how to do things efficiently in the language. The curated data is... honestly a little basic and overrated imo. If you are doing general work, maybe their population info is ok, but you don't really know the source of the data entirely, when it was acquired, etc. If you are doing real research, it's not gonna cut it. I wanted to do analysis of ethereum, but their blockchain library was incredibly weak. It did not support reading data at given block ids (ie: historical analysis), and when I requested the feature the answer was basically "maybe in the next major revision." I'm not a fan of python, but I went there. I used typed python, which ultimately I think the best solution moving forward is probably typescript, since typed python has a lot of type holes in it :-/